Tag: injured

With the UFC set to hold two of the most stacked cards in promotional history in the coming weeks – UFC 198 and UFC 200 — there’s been an overwhelming feeling that shit was all but destined to hit the fan in one capacity or another. “Conor McGregor suffers another ACL tear.” “Nate Diaz shot backstage at Snoop Dogg concert.” “Fabricio Werdum retires amidst actual prostitution scandal.” These were all headlines that we could have seen coming over the weekend, because this sport is nothing if not an unpredictable circus.

What you might not expect, however, is that the bad luck that always finds its way to MMA would trickle down to an unrelated fight card, like say, UFC 197. Which, with the MMA Gods being the vengeful, sadistic asshole that they are, is of course what happened.

While most of us (ie. Chael Sonnen) were content to use Nogueira’s run of bad luck as the basis for several personal attacks on Twitter, Dana White recently revealed that the blame for what was quite possibly the shortest-lived fight in UFC history lies solely on his own shoulders, as Lil Nog never actually agreed to the fight in the first place. He tells MMAJunkie:

What happened was that night we decided to make the fight. Gustafsson said yes, and they couldn’t get hold of him, so I said, ‘F–k it,’ and just went with it and announced the fight, and of course, he’s hurt.

The fight isn’t for four months, and he’s already determined he’s hurt. I don’t understand that. The guy is always hurt. Every time you call him, he’s hurt.

While I typically draw the line when it comes to taking pot shots at a Nogueira, I do find it interesting that the younger, not-run-over-by-a-truck-as-a-child Nogueira has been battling more injury issues than the older, run-over-by-a-truck-as-a-child, arm-shattered-by-Frank-Mir Nogueira as of late. I’m not saying Sonnen’s onto something, but he kind of is, you guys.

There’s no word on the nature of the injury, but there’s bound to be a plethora of rumors about how Aldo got hurt. We actually have it on good authority that it was groin pull he sustained during his first Smashers Club get together on Saturday night.

(With 9mm down and out, WEC is looking for someone to face "The Polish Hammer.")

TopMMANews is the first outlet to report that Ed Ratcliff has been forced to withdraw from his scheduled Sunday night WEC 49 showdown with Chris Horodecki in Edmonton, Alberta, for undisclosed reasons, although he is rumored to be injured, leaving the promotion scrambling to find a last-minute replacement for the former IFL standout.

Ratcliff confirmed the news on his Facebook page:

“I wanna say sorry to all the fans, family, and friends for having to pull out on such late notice. Even more importantly I wanna appologise to Chris Horodecki for going thru all of that hard work and not getting the final release u deserve. I wish u the best. Sorry everyone.!!!!!!”